Myths and Legends of the Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes

Page: 3

As in all the other volumes of this series, no effort
has been made to ornament or amplify these legends in
the effort to make them “literary,” or give them “literary
charm.” They must speak for themselves. What
editing has been done has been in simplifying them,
and freeing them from the verbose setting in which
many were found. For in this section of the country,
settled before it was realized that there was an Indian
literature, the original work of noting down the myths
was very imperfectly done.

Thanks are due to the work of Albert E. Jenks, on
the wild rice Indians of the upper lakes; to James
Mooney, for the myths of the Cherokees; to George
Catlin, for some of the upper Mississippi legends; to
the well-known but almost inaccessible work of Schoolcraft,
and to others.